linkmachinego.com
20 August 2005
[comics] Gallery told to Drop ‘Gay’ Batman‘DC Comics has ordered a New York gallery to remove pictures which show Batman and Robin kissing and embracing.’ [Related: Robin — What Have I done to You?]
19 August 2005
[comics] What is a Graphic Novel? — an introduction from Jessica Abel. [via Warren Ellis]
18 August 2005
[strategies] Oblique Strategies — online version of a pack of Cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmitdt for help in solving creative problems using cryptic remarks… ‘Repetition is a form of Change.’
[wifi] 10 Tips for improving your Wireless Network — from Microsoft but applicable to any Wifi Network … ‘If Microsoft Windows XP ever notifies you about a weak signal, it probably means your connection isn’t as fast or as reliable as it could be. Worse, you might lose your connection entirely in some parts of your home. If you’re looking to improve the signal for your wireless network, try some of these tips’
16 August 2005
[comics] Sushi Comic Books — gallery of comic book covers [via Metafilter]
[trains] Accessible UK Train Timetables‘This is an accessible version of the National Rail Enquiries train timetable site, giving access to the information on that site no matter what browser you are using, with no requirement for cookies, JavaScript and iframes. It works by screenscraping the information on the official site…’ [via del.icio.us/blogjam]
[macs] Largest Collection of Macintosh Compacts in Belgium — collecting Mac’s taken to the extreme… [thanks Phil]
12 August 2005
[bombings] The World on a Train — Geoff Ryman (author of 253) on the 7/7 Tube Bombings … ‘The philosopher Hannah Arendt concluded that evil lay in the refusal to think. One of the things evil cannot face contemplating is variety. It prefers monolithic simplicity. Reality outstrips simplicity through a constant flowering of unexpected lives.’ [via Londonist]
[comics] Amateur Manga Translators Tell Their Stories — The Comics Journal looks at Manga Scanlations‘What is interesting is that there are many, many people working in these scanlation groups, and it takes up an incredible amount of work to put out a single chapter. And they all do it for free. That is an incredible amount of passion.’
11 August 2005
[bb6] The Going, Going Gong Show — Charlie Brooker neatly sums up this years Big Brother. ‘…the prestigious Most Sickening Housemate award, which this year goes to a couple: Maxwell (London’s village idiot) and Saskia (burly, wrathful harridan with a face that could advertise war). Their daily routine consisted of bullying, bellowing, cackling at their own dismal non-jokes, glaring, sniping and discussing their imminent ascent to the toppermost peaks of stardom – until the last week, when, faced with eviction, they settled for sulkily rutting like doomed livestock. The latter surely ranks as the least sexy thing ever broadcast on television. I’d get more aroused watching a dog drown in petrol.’
[soundboard] The Sewell Sampler — a soundboard of utterings from Brian Sewell‘I am an Art Expert…’ [via currybetdotnet
[comics] Interview with Dan Clowes — mainly covering his new film Art School Confidential‘I had a revelatory moment as a child when I was drawing Superman. He had that insignia on his chest, and I was studying it for hours (I think I was 4 or 5). I saw the negative shapes that define the S, but I didn’t get that it was a letter. I would draw those shapes over and over. Then one day I realized, “It’s an S!” It all fit together. “S for Superman, of course!”‘
10 August 2005
[comics] V for Vendetta Annotations — includes an interesting list of pop culture influences which Alan Moore and David Lloyd drew on whilst creating V for Vendetta

‘Orwell. Huxley. Thomas Disch. Judge Dredd. Harlan Ellison’s “Repent Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman.”, “Catman” and “Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World” by the same author. Vincent Price’s Dr. Phibes and Theatre of Blood. David Bowie. The Shadow. Nightraven. Batman. Farenheit 451. The writings of the New Worlds school of science fiction. Max Ernst’s painting “Europe After the Rains.” Thomas Pynchon. The atmosphere of British Second World War films. The Prisoner. Robin Hood. Dick Turpin…’

[useful] Say No To 0870 — list of cheaper alternative phone numbers for the extortionate 0870 / 0871 / 0845 numbers.
9 August 2005
[comics] Two scanned pages [Page 1 | Page 2] from Alan Moore’s Script for V For Vendetta

image of voice of fate dialogue from Alan Moore's V for Vendetta Script

[comics] On “Liberality” for all — Tom covers an neo-conservative comic called Liberality For All in which Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy (!!) and Oliver North fight ultra-leftism, the United Nations and of course Osama bin Laden … ‘…I’d like to introduce you all to the future of literature for kids – Liberality, an American Neo-Con comic book in the vein of The Authority’
8 August 2005
[archive] Linkage:

6 August 2005
[tv] After the Crash — preview of Lost from the Guardian (which is just about to be transmitted on on British TV) … ‘Lost […] is a fantasy in which Americans (and, by extension, America) survive a terrible aeroplane incident but the society that results is more savage, suspicious and selfish than what existed before. To sneak so tough and thoughtful a theme into a mainstream drama series that was created by crossing reality TV with a disaster movie must be regarded as a major achievement.’
[tv] Sky at Night — Recent Real Media Archive of the science TV series Sky at Night presented by Patrick Moore. [via Metafilter]
5 August 2005
[blogs] The Blogs of War — Wired News covers Bloggers in the American Military … Danjel Bout, aka Thunder 6: ‘Americans are raised on a steady diet of action films and sound bites that slip from one supercharged scene to another, leaving out all the confusing decisions and subtle details where most people actually spend their lives. While that makes for a great story, it doesn’t reveal anything of lasting value. For people to really understand our day-to-day experience here, they need more than the highlights reel. They need to see the world through our eyes for a few minutes.’
[religion] Obscenities Uttered by Jesus Christ‘Dad.’
3 August 2005
[food] Blogjam’s Garden Snail Risotto — Fraser hunts, farms, kills and eats some lovely creatures from his garden… Sounds Delicious! ‘And into the pan they go. Reluctantly ignoring their silent snail screams, I boil them gently for ten minutes. Rather strangely, the water turns yellow, but I can’t find any reference to this on the Internet – I’m hoping it’s not some kind of toxic gastropod secretion, but only history will tell…’
2 August 2005
[books] Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2005 … Detective Winner: ‘Patricia wrote out the phrase ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ exactly seventy-two times, which was the same number of times she stabbed her now quickly-rotting husband, and the same number of pages she ripped out of ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ by Greg Behrendt to scatter around the room — not because she was obsessive compulsive, or had any sentimental attachment to the number seventy-two, but because she’d always wanted to give those quacks at CSI a hard time.’
1 August 2005
[comics] A Comic Book Hero — profile of Dan Clowes from the Guardian … ‘I would never trust anyone else to work with my artwork. I can’t relinquish absolute control. I have an OCD [obsessive compulsive disorder] thing about having drawn every single line in every one of my comics. The great appeal is to be able to say, I did this whole book all by myself. It’s a little module that I created.’
31 July 2005
[history] Ancient Graffiti on the walls of Pompeii‘Watch it, you that shits in this place! May you have Jove’s anger if you ignore this.’ [via linkbunnies.org]
29 July 2005
[comics] Diesel Sweeties – a comic I look at everyday but have never blogged (shame on me!) …


28 July 2005
[python] How accurate is Eric Idle’s Galaxy Song?Song: Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. Comment: While there have been some estimates that are a bit higher than 100 billion stars, this is still a pretty good estimate.’ [via Badly Dubbed Boy]
[movies] V for Vendetta Trailer — it doesn’t look as bad as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen… Alan Moore on the V for Vendetta Shooting Script: ‘They don’t know what British people have for breakfast, they couldn’t be bothered. ‘Eggy in a basket’ apparently. Now the US have ‘eggs in a basket,’ which is fried bread with a fried egg in a hole in the middle. I guess they thought we must eat that as well, and thought ‘eggy in a basket’ was a quaint and Olde Worlde version.’ [via Pete’s Linklog]
27 July 2005
[bell] Steve Bell: Uneasy Rider [Related: Archive of Steve Bell’s Cartoons]
18 July 2005
[lmg] On Holiday. In the meantime you can check out the archives, the Evening Standard Headline Crisis or other British Blogs
16 July 2005
[books] The alternative Harry Potter (link contains Spoilers) — In the Style of James Ellroy: ‘Dig that Hogwarts vibe. Potter foresaw it was going down. The howler came that morning. It howled that his presence was required in the Room of Requirement. Potter knew things were gonna go baaaad. He knew this was a mess even the Sorting Hat couldn’t sort out.’
15 July 2005
[maps] Google spots Jesus in Peruvian Sand Dune‘A quick phone call to Erich von Däniken confirmed our initial suspicions that the image was hewn from the sand by an ancient civilisation using hot air balloons and alien laser technology borrowed from the scientists of Atlantis. Either that or someone is projecting a picture of Charles Manson onto the desert from a low Earth orbit…’
14 July 2005
[comics] Tony and George G8 Comic – Page 1Page 2 — from Sean Phillips and Mark Millar … [via Do You Feel Loved]
[comics] The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick — comic strip by Robert Crumb from Weirdo #17 … ‘It is an interesting graphic interpretation of a series of events which happened to Dick in March of 1974. He spent the remaining years of his life trying to figure out what happened in those fateful months. You will find all 8 pages of this story here.’
[books] How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later — essay by Philip K. Dick‘It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked the question “What is reality?”, to someday get an answer. This was the hope of most of my readers, too. Years passed. I wrote over thirty novels and over a hundred stories, and still I could not figure out what was real. One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That’s all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven’t been able to define reality any more lucidly.’
13 July 2005
[comics] Ask Mefi: What’s a good place to start for indie comics?‘I’d recommend ordering the free Fantagraphics catalogue.’
[comics] Acme Novelty Archive ‘This site is an unofficial database of the works of Mr. F.C. Ware, proprieter of the Acme Novelty Library.’
12 July 2005
[politics] Simon Hoggart: ‘Parliament was united against a common enemy yesterday, an enemy that will stop at nothing, that has only contempt for our way of life, and is utterly indifferent to our loathing. But as well as attacking George Galloway, MPs also had harsh words for the London bombers.’
[food] How to Poach an Egg — Rob Manuel demos a method for perfect poached egg using clingfilm.
11 July 2005
[moore] Old Gangsters Never Die — another song from Alan Moore produced around the same time as the The March of the Sinister Ducks.
[comics] Desolation Jones #1: Author’s Commentary — Warren Ellis on the first issue of Desolation Jones
8 July 2005
7 July 2005
[london] Surviving a Terrorist Attack — a personal account of one of the terror attacks on the London Underground … ‘Fate is a strange thing. On this particular day a series of events transpired such that I ended up on a Tube train that was destroyed by terrorists. Fortunately it was only the carriage in front of me, but tragically it resulted in a serious amount of injuries. This is my story.’
[london] mobloguk: Tube Image, Trapped
[london] Flickr: London Bomb Blasts Pool.
[numbers] 100,000 Digits of Pi — if you stare at that page of numbers long enough you see the Secret of the Universe … ‘3.141592’
6 July 2005
[books] The Invisible Library‘The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library’s catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound.’
[london] Photos inside Battersea Power Station‘Built in 1933, the Grade II listed structure now faces a new future at the centre of a large shopping, leisure, conference and accommodation complex, due to open in 2009.’
5 July 2005
[tips] Londonist asks: Do We Need To Dry Clean?‘To maximise the length of time between launderings, air your clothes as much as possible, especially after being in a smoky pub. The posh cleaners Jeeves of Belgravia recommend hanging your clothes in the bathroom after you’ve taken a shower “to absorb the freshness.”‘
4 July 2005
[live8] The Music’s Over, the Message Lingers On — nice summary of the Live 8 concert in London … ‘At midday the approach to the park was a familiar pre-rock concert landscape of men weeing under trees, jocular police and a revivalist with a megaphone: “I used to be a sinner like you, now I’m a winner.”‘
[ipod] UK iPod Repairs — might be useful one day…
30 June 2005
[tv] In Cold Blood — JG Ballard on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation‘The series unfolds within an almost totally interiorised world, a clue to its real significance. The crimes – they are all homicides – take place in anonymous hotel rooms and in the tract housing of the Vegas and Miami suburbs, almost never in a casino or druglord’s gaudy palace. A brutal realism prevails, the grimmest in any crime series. Suburban lounges and that modern station of the cross, the hotel bathroom, are the settings of horrific murders, which thankfully are over by the time each episode begins. Gloves donned, the cast dismantle u-bends and plunge up to their elbows in toilet bowls, retrieving condoms, diaphragms and bullet casings, syringes, phials and other signs of the contemporary zodiac.’
29 June 2005
[office] Corporate Fun!‘Spread Anguish! Create Unease! Get Your Arse Out Of That Chair!’